Nine years old, crossing the Atlantic from New York in the "Liberté" to step from a platform into a lighter in a gale of wind 6 miles off Plymouth, England. Then the "Durban Castle" (Royal Mail Ship) from Southampton with stops in Gibraltar, Marseille, Genoa, Port Said, Port Suez, Port Sudan, Aden, Mombasa, Tanga, Zanzibar, and finally Dar es Salaam where we lived for four years. In all these ports all manner of boats were present and active. Tugboats, fishing boats, yachts, launches, motoring, rowing, sailing, sculling; I watched them all and loved every minute of it. Going in a boat, launch, ferry, or ship was great; but just watching them go, maneuvering around a dock, working through the channel currents, every oar stroke and reversed rudder reflected the ability of the boat and the boatman.

The Dhows still sailed into "Dar". Passenger ships, freighters and naval vessels all hung on the moorings off the beach just across the road from our house. The dhows went on the hard up the creek on the far end of the harbor. The British colonial personnel had their yacht club a few hundred feet along the front toward the harbor mouth with a wide variety of cruising and racing boats in a modest fleet. In our last years on Anzania front, I did 7th grade at home with the Calvert system and my deal was, when I finished my I was free to go. Deep water docks had been built deep in the harbor. I was often on the docks watching the ships. Then there was the main boat dock opposite the Post Office with the water taxies, oar and motor, and the tugboats. Many happy hours I spent, a junior member of Ernest K. Gann's "International Dock Committee."